1. Night befriended me, so it became my companion
Then we parted, a lad weeping on my shoulder!

2. It’s dark-complexioned, day charmed with kohl
While I, fair-skinned, even my father disowned me

3. And went about the tribe’s affairs, brandishing
The sword of gallantry, leaving me to my killing

4. Mother, saddled with half a poem
When the sand’s questioning wearied my mount

5. So I returned, the horizons guiding me without direction
However we traveled, east was my west

6. I inclined my heart towards a noble lineage
In affection mingling with my desire

7. I met what meets the stranger, as though
A slave stole into a foreigner’s robe!

8. O people, these verses are sheer delusion
Poets have no religion or prophet in them

9. Our devil's a female, and we her cubs
Would it harm her had she not given birth?

10. We used to mock the metaphor that gratifies
A cloud with a home in the sanctuary of a “foolish moon”

11. Yet we're poets who weep for idols
And defend gazelle beauty from the hyena

12. From the vine of language we pressed our poetry
In the chalice of Achilles, so drink!

13. Passion grew thirsty for a thirsty lover who sees
That beauty hides in the palm of Layla’s hand

14. Look, you’re a child in the meaning of calmness
Who charged man to dwell in you and grow weary?

15. I was blamed, they never realized I'm a cloud
Without its heavy darkness, it would not pour!

16. Had my color been gold, I'd have pursued it
But in events, my sword is my doctrine

17. With it I wrested my freedom from the earth
And etched above the water the face of my tormentor

18. And now, the sky hands me over to its sands
A scabbard without a sword to dusty my playground

19. Look, my blind killer, I'm pleased with his arrow
So he won't see me wince and twist

20. The cup of doom, no way around it
"O people where can I flee from doom?”